Progressive Anti-Depressants: Twenty-six Easy Dosages

By Hy Stones

This short-story collection is for when you need to sit back and relax. These stories started from ideas that then more or less took over and wrote themselves. Take "The Wife's Smile." It started during breakfast; my wife actually smiled at a comment. Before coffee break, in thirty minutes I had an outline.
Such stories--be they humorous or sad, adventurous or happy-go-lucky--lift the spirits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Release date: Jan 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781725258662

Hy Stones

Other than appreciation in the bliss of procrastination, Hy Stones writes stories; some are shorter, others are longer, but each has a similar purpose, to make you want to read the next one, although he recommends that you do one per day. Once he walked out of college with a degree in English in his pocket, the event a mountain peak of accomplishment.

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Progressive Anti-Depressants

Twenty-six Easy Dosages

Hy Stones

Progressive Anti-Depressants

Twenty-Six Easy Dosages

Copyright ©

2020

Hy Stones. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers,

199

W.

8

th Ave., Suite

3

, Eugene, OR

97401

.

Resource Publications

An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

199

W.

8

th Ave., Suite

3

Eugene, OR

97401

www.wipfandstock.com

paperback isbn: 978-1-7252-5864-8

hardcover isbn: 978-1-7252-5865-5

ebook isbn: 978-1-7252-5866-2

Manufactured in the U.S.A.

January 14, 2020

For Katriel,

storyteller

Table of Contents

Title Page

Introduction

Baldy’s Last Flight

Boneyard Memories

By Wind and by Water

Cold Cases

On Coming Down Out of a Dark Sky

Farm With Three Horses

Fred at His Best

Glenna’s First

A Grass-Green Barrel

Emmerton’s Emmerton

Life With a Mouse Trap

Lost Secrets

Louisa’s Men

Mother’s Recipe

On a Floating Island

Power in the Big Bills

Pumpkins Behind and Below the Garage

Rooster Soup Supreme

Bang-Up Expansion

Resident and Occupant

A Running of the Rabbits

Stopsign Illiteracy

Susie Bless-Her-Heart

That Thing

The Wife’s Smile

Up and Down the River

INTRODUCTION

S

tories resemble seeds. Some

seeds never germinate. Other ideas, unable to find fertile imagination, sprout and dry up. A few germinate to live. In these cases the taproot sinks into good imagination, foliage moves up, flowers embrace sunshine, and seeds produce other possibilities. The process of each plant from seed to seed even after scientific analysis still withholds its secret.

Try this analogy. A smith places pieces of steel in a white-hot forge. As acrid smoke billows about he with a pair of long tongs pulls the pieces out and with a ten-pound hammer beats these into letters, making sparks fly, the letters with intense effort into words, the words into sentences, and the sentences into paragraphs. Laboriously and mysteriously a story evolves.

•

May each of these progressive anti-depressants offer you satisfaction and make you reach for the next, except I recommend one per day only.

If you recognize any of the characters I ask that you keep that as a delicious morsel between us. Loose lips may get me into trouble.

—HS

BALDY’S LAST FLIGHT

T

he joy of the

day overflows onto the earth. People bounce rather than walk. Old Tremblay’s canes move with a will and a whimsy. Louise Stadnick’s baby buggy rolls without a push; if motherhood is so easy, her smile may say, she’ll have more. Hammers and saws of Proctor’s carpentry crew flash with unwonted eagerness on the house he’s constructing at Sagatauris and Queen. Men fastening trusses in place on the Dutch church building work with shirts off. Men digging out the basement for the Lutheran kirche compete to be first in readying their sanctuary. Automobilists find vehicles floating along. Blooms luxuriate. Birds chatter, whistle, chirp, and tweet some more. Bees buzz. Tongue lolling, the town mutt lopes up Queen, north of the Crossing, appreciative of momentary civic good will; at least he’s not dodging sticks and stones. Zest and bliss compete for attention on this halcyon of days. All the earth brims with vivacity. Even Mrs. Bascombe, cruising about in her pink Cadillac, carries less of a matriarchal frown. Judge J.D. Ancaster rides along with windows down, left arm hanging outside the car. What a day! What a day! All creation basks in sunlight.

•

Amidst all this geniality Baldy Givens quietly comes out of the air in the Aero Club’s Boeing P-

12

, the forsythia-yellow biplane, which he insisted be saved from the scrap dealer and which he alone dares to fly. At that moment a belated spring fever rushes at him.

Instead of touching down on the tarmac with his customary dash, the ramrod of the Aero Club’s training program throttles the engine to maximum power and lets the joy of the day take possession.

•

On a dare, back in

1935

, sixteen-year old Baldy enlisted in the air force, such as it was during the pre-war years. Stunt flying maneuvers and aerial acrobatics he learned in a Spitfire squadron over the English Channel now reminisce in his head and enthrall him once more. All he’s amassed in fourteen years comes alive.

Soaring straight up from a near landing, the rataplan racket of the massive eight-cylinder engine merges into a stormy roar; all four-hundred and twenty-five horses pound in unison against restraints of time and space. Up. And up.

People outdoors suddenly pay attention, and see the well-known and astonishingly yellow fuselage and deep-brown wings of the P-

12

furiously climbing. And climbing. Straight up.

People indoors, sensing outdoor counterparts paying attention to something different, rush to doorways and windows, happy for an excuse to break into the outdoors, and search blue skies for a breath of afternoon gaiety.

At the double-decker’s far limit, Baldy eases the throttle. Way up, the yellow speck pauses and trembles in the still blue of the air. Then with swooshing winds against wings and struts, Baldy begins descending. Down. Down.

Through his goggles Baldy sees houses and streets resume more normal proportions; cars and trucks become larger, tractors and wagons in the fields take on large as life shapes.

Nearing treetop level, Givens pulls out of the spiraling dive and once again lashes the horsepower in front of him into renewed vigor. Up. Up. Into a magnificent loop de loop. Adds an Immelmann turn for good measure.

Feisty leprechauns jump up and down on his heart valves, making blood boil from veins into arteries.

At the crazy antics of the biplane careening about and down, Old Tremblay chucks his canes and gallops for shelter behind a large maple. To protect her baby, Mrs. Stadnick dashes unmotherly across the street and almost sideswipes Mrs. Bascombe’s pink Cadillac. Proctor’s crew, hammers and saws pointed every which way, pauses, crouching, ready to jump. Harvey Cox, behind the wheel of his new Olds

98

, is startled out of reveries by the surges of roaring powers overhead; he rear-ends Barnabas Fry’s stake truck. The editor of The Elmere Protector rushes and dashes about to scoop up the week’s headline. Nancy Oxenford exits onto her second story balcony with camera at the ready, hoping for a crash of something. Suddenly the prodigality of the day runs into conflicts of emotion.

More sedate pilots holding horizontal patterns prior to landing scatter like a flock of chickens with a hawk in the neighborhood.

At the Aerodrome, James Caldwell runs up into the control tower and grabs the mike from Cyril Groborowski’s frozen hands and yells into the airwaves for the sedate flyers to go away. For good measure, he screams, Go away! As the airport manager he shows the new controller who the boss is and how to treat an upstart stuntman. The pilot and copilot of the twin-engine Air Canada bank into opposing directions—to the left and to the right—for safety in the direction of the Grandville International. The pilot of a still operative Lancaster on Runway One, ready for takeoff, releases his stewardess, guns all engines to race along the tarmac at a speed that slams passengers into seats, everything necessary to escape the mad manager with the loudspeaker. Caldwell may think he’s showing Groborowski the ropes, but now they have another plane in the air, uncertain where to go on a fine afternoon. But the manager has eyes glued only on a yellow and brown P-

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coming out of another excellently executed Immelmann turn.

Baldy sees and hears nothing of the consternation and commotion on the ground, in the air, and issuing from the control tower. Caldwell’s bellowing, Go away!, misses him entirely. There is no radio in the P-

12

.

A Northern Goshawk, miffed by mechanized trapeze acts and roaring noises, swoops down into a stand of red pine at the far end of the Malpais.

Gulls lazing about in river shallows near the Bridge agree to stay down a while longer, until the skies clear. Then they’ll take a turn at aerial acrobatics again.

Baldy, coming out of the Immelmann turn, finds the ecstasy of this June day in a cloudless sky totally gripping. His juices flow. With unheard laughter rallying from depths around his diaphragm he emerges out of an earsplitting blast of horsepower near ground level, follows Queen from the north to the south, skimming along at church spire level. South of town he turns and sweeps back along Queen.

Anyone now not aware of Givens’s aerial stunt work has to be dead, nor nearly so. Bed-ridden patients in Elmere General struggle out of the sheets and away from nurses for the windows or onto the roof.

The town mutt yelps again with anticipated pain at the second pass and skedaddles for cover under a hedge. What are cat lovers throwing at him now?

Dogs everywhere bark, daring the intruder from the air to come closer, much closer.

Way up, Baldy works out his hammerhead roll.

The milk factory’s stack sucks back its breath, drawing in lazying white smoke. The whole town has stopped breathing. The day’s happy breezes are motionless.

Everywhere people crowd into the streets, front yards, backyards, lawns, and parks; all want the best grandstand positions. Eager fingers point out to the children and the elderly the dizzy P-

12

, the yellow speck far off in the distance. Many grin with anticipation. Many worry about the outcome.

Nothing fazes Baldy any more. His palms are dry. His heart beats fast. His pulse rate throbs. In all his thirty-odd years he’s not felt this free and barmy. His blood turns into euphoria. Arteries and veins boil with mirth. Baldy Givens is loose from the world.

The double-decker flies on ecstasy. The motor no longer runs; the pistons are laughing. The wings are of gossamer. The flight is rhapsodic.

In this state there is no yesterday or tomorrow. The world doesn’t exist. Only he’s real. Solo. Yesterday is forgotten. Tomorrow has no cares.

The green scarf Baldy affects stands out straight behind him, eager to keep up, as he climbs again.

Below, the unsettled town turns into a collection of matchbox houses, fields into minuscule rectangles and squares, spires into pins, and the Bourne into a rivulet. Far up, in the fused speck of humanity and pre-War mechanics, Baldy savors the joie-de-vivre of the moment. Doesn’t he have the controls in hand and an instructor’s license in his pocket? Here are no traffic signs.

•

Before he stepped out of uniform, Baldy lived in an alcoholic daze. Every day. Every night. For weeks on end. Until he woke up late one afternoon facing a paternity suit.

To many flyers in Elmere for demobbing, Paula was the Greta Garbo and the Bette Gable in one. Fights behind the barracks and in bars settled which movie star she resembled more. Paula didn’t mind the attention. But out of all available men she pointed to Baldy as the twin’s father.

In a private conversation with the Justice of the Peace, Mr. C.A. Simons, a hugely bemused Mr. Givens, definitely and forever sobered, agreed not to fight the paternity suit and heed Mr. Simons orders, wed Paula within the month, purchase any available three-bedroom bungalow on Peach, and find gainful employment befitting a father of two. Baldy had insisted on the extra bedroom, one for himself and one each for Paula and the boys. Mr. Simons, a progressive of sorts and unwilling to peek into the community’s bedrooms even officiated at the wedding.

Before the wedding, Baldy landed the job as flying instructor for the Aero Club. This was in ’

45

or ’

46

. Since then, Baldy sees no end to teaching would-be aerialists.

Every morning Paula sees him off and every evening waits for him. And in every respect Baldy is a loving and dutiful husband and model father. Except for the extra bedroom.

•

As Givens commences upon his last spiraling dive from heights far above Elmere, Chief Irving dispatches Const. Obermeier post haste to apprehend Baldy on many charges. Arrest him for disturbing the peace! For endangering public safety! For being a public nuisance! For scaring the daylight out of my chickens! For spoiling my afternoon nap! For Mrs. Irving’s foul temper this evening! For trying to start another world war! For an atheist tempting God! For living! For interfering with the education of our children! For contributing to the delinquency of minors! For owning too many bedrooms! For trying to break out of town! For adding to our workload! Once our Chief gets going, he knows what’s good for everybody.

Obermeier, get your man! Rip up and burn his license! Break his legs! Bring him in, dead or alive!

•

People stand about. Automobilists park every which way in the middle of streets and on the roads not to miss anything of Baldy’s showmanship. From the Crossing to the Aerodrome the highway is blocked. But not for Const. Obermeier. Const. Obermeier scoots for the Aerodrome and forestalls strong temptations to activate siren and red flasher. Only the wind passing through the open windows and the whine of the tires catch his ears. Deftly he maneuvers around stalled vehicles and along blocked roads and past lumps of gawkers. He wants to hold onto the mood of the day for as long as possible. And laughs. Loud. Uproariously. With every bone in his body. His Chief’s in fine form. When that man’s British dander gets up, none and nothing spoils Const. Obermeier’s humor.

•

Once more the veteran of the skies comes out of the blue yonder, the P-

12

responding to his every wish. To climax the day’s feverish deviltry he thunders belly up over and along Main. At treetop level. The gawkers come alive and wave. Baldy grins impudently down at Elmere High students and teachers gaping out at him through open windows and from the roof, shouting at him to stop, wait for them.

Right side up again, he passes over the constable and wiggles the tail rudder . . .

. . . to touch down gently on tarmac now wholly reserved for him and whatever final exploits he may dream up. But the engine coughs on vagrant fumes of fuel and stops.

Pushed by momentum, Baldy trundles to the parking area in front of the larger hangar, by the fuel pumps. The green scarf twists mildly in the wind and droops. The pilot of the P-

12

shoves up his goggles, leans back, stretches his arms full length out of the cockpit, leisurely lights a cigarette, cooling the fervors of the day. All in one languid motion. Addlepated no more, he jumps out.

At the hangar door, Manager Caldwell in several overlapping stages of apoplexy and with a flood of vituperation forbids Baldy ever, ever again to set foot on Aerodrome property. Fired! Evicted! Blacklisted! He hurls the spring-fever ruining words at the ex-instructor.

Owner and president of the Aero Club, O. Larry Roberts, a first-class aviation enthusiast, rousted from his realty business, totally in control of himself wipes froth from purplish lips on his jacket sleeve, and spiritly damns Baldy for ever having come to him for a job. Your duties are redundant! You’re fired, fired, hear me? As of this moment and forever! He has more such strong language, but the last words resemble harrowing screams rather than helpful information.

From ten feet away and unobserved the editor of our weekly photographs the black and white commotion, the altercations forever in our